Girion47:TappingTheVein: Philip Francis Queeg: Too bad the IDF uses Palestinian children as human shields as well. I guess neither side thinks Palestinian children's lives are worth very much, do they?

If an israeli soldier does it there is an investigation and a trial and the israeli public like myself think he's a piece of shiat, the israeli court itself forbids it (nohal shachen). The palestinians do it as part of their training and warfare, it's their tactic. Do you understand the difference ?

TappingTheVein:Excellent article, arab reporter actually acknowledging reality and also published by an arab news site ? in public ? This is extremely rare.This guy has balls of steel. I hope he won't get hurt for speaking the truth.

Philip Francis Queeg:You are truly a moron. I have repeatedly said that all three examples of "pre-emptive" war gave are utter bullshiat and completely unjustified.

Reduced to ad homninem attack. You lose, I win.

Wicked Chinchilla:you missed the point by a mile clambam. He is making a direct comparison between the claims of Japan in '41 to the claims of Israel in '67. He is not using them to justify anything, he is using it as an example of "This is unjust for the same reasons"

Israel did not pre-emptively attack the Arabs in 1967 to grab territory. Israel pre-emptively attacked the Arabs to prevent the Arab attack that was blatantly in the works given the scope and location of their military build-up. As far as the '67 War being an excuse for territorial aggrandizement, um, does "the Sinai peninsula" ring a bell with you? You know, that enormous piece of territory, complete with actual oil deposits, that Israel willingly gave back to Egypt in return for a peace treaty? The West Bank and Gaza weren't conquered by Israel; they were abandoned by the Jordanians and Egyptians, who frankly were no more interested in dealing with the Palestinians than the Israelis are (the Jordanians are already 60% Palestinian, so the royal family probably gave a huge sigh of relief when they were able to shuck off a chunk of territory filled with extremist kooks).

Mouser:Giltric: On May 14, 1948 the state of Israel was declared. And just one day after that, on May 15, 1948 the Arabs declared war on Israel to get back Palestine.

They arabs were always keen on rescuing the land from the jews....but never keen on rescuing the Palestinians.

Why should they? Palestinians are more Jewish than Arab.

The dirty secret of the Middle East is that despite claims to the contrary, Palestinians are not Arab. They're Jewish converts to Islam. The story of the Jewish Diaspora in the 1st-2nd Centuries AD is only half-true; not all Jews were expelled. Some remained behind, and many had converted to Christianity by that time. When the armies of Islam marched in during the 7th Century AD, these quasi-Jewish/Christian Palestinians, wanting to get in good with their conquerors, started converting over to their religion.

Seriously, the whole Palestinian mess could be solved overnight if the Palestinians would convert back to the faith of their ancestors and re-adopt Judaism. The Israeli authorities could hardly discriminate against one of their own, now could they?

What the... I don't even...

Actually, while it is true that the Jews have maintained a small presence in Israel since the Diaspora and of course for 1800 years before that, the vast majority of the inhabitants of Palestine at the time of the Arab Conquest were Christians. Jews tend to cling to their religion no matter what, which is why there are still Jews... and why there aren't more of them. However, I totally agree with you. Were the Palestinians to convert en masse to Judaism the Israelis would have no choice but to accept them as citizens. You have to understand though, it's not a matter of "I want to be a Jew." There is a lot of study and reading involved, there's a test, and spelling counts. Generally it takes about two years to convert to Orthodox Judaism if you devote yourself to it full time. The Palestinians are of course welcome to undertake this onerous task, as is anyone else sincerely interested in converting. By comparison:

Two Jews are walking past a Catholic church with a sign outside: "Convert and Get a Thousand Dollars." One of the Jews says "I'm going to check it out." An hour later he comes back and his friend says "Well? Did you get the thousand dollars?" and the other one says "Is that all you people think about?"

Philip Francis Queeg:That's not the case. The build up was going on. A flight of B-17s in transit to the Philippines happened to arrive in Hawaii on the morning of December 7, 1941. It did not go so well for them. 2 squadrons had already preceded them. There had been a significant build up of aircraft in the Philippines through the fall of 1941.

Joe Blowme:The Evil That Lies In The Hearts Of Men: Girion47: Think about the money we've spent on wars outside our borders, what could it have gone to?

For the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars the US could have fitted every house in the country with either solar power or a geothermal heating/cooling system and had a few hundred billion dollars left over for hookers and blow.

Instead we gave 39+million people a chance at freedom and self determination Why do you hate brown people?

So you think the only way Iraq and Afghanistan could have freed themselves from tyrannical governments and directed the course of their countries' future was by begging white people for help?

Girion47:Think about the money we've spent on wars outside our borders, what could it have gone to?

For the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars the US could have fitted every house in the country with either solar power or a geothermal heating/cooling system and had a few hundred billion dollars left over for hookers and blow.